How I Published an Audiobook with Amazon’s Virtual Voice (KDP AI Narration) for Free

Do you want to turn your ebook into an audiobook in under 30 minutes without hiring a narrator or renting a studio or spending a single penny? Yeah. Amazon's new digital voice program says just click here to do that. But should you? Well, I went ahead and did it. So if you're wondering about it, this video is for you.

Hi, I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of Book Launchers and your host right here at Book Launchers tv. Book Launchers is your first choice for all things related to writing, publish, and promoting nonfiction books. If you've ever looked at audiobook production and thought you really want to make your book accessible to readers who will never actually read your book, whether they can't or just don't want to read it, but they want to listen to it, and you thought, that's a lot of money for words to be heard aloud. Well, it is. But Amazon has a solution for you now. They've launched a beta program for virtual voice audiobooks available through the the Kindle Direct publishing platform. If your ebook is eligible, setting it up is surprisingly easy. And that's exactly what I'm doing right now. Because when I logged into KDP this week, I saw a little notice that I am now eligible for the beta. And it just so happens I do have a book that does not have an audiobook. So let's go. Your ebook needs to be live, not in publishing, not on pre order. It has to be live for this to appear. Then Amazon will automatically run an eligibility check, which usually finishes within 35 hours after your book is published. Now, if your book passes, you will see a shiny new option. Add Audible Audiobook with virtual Voice. Looks just like this. If it's missing, don't panic. First of all, this is still in beta. And not all of our authors that don't have an audiobook are seeing it. So it's not everywhere yet. But you also just might have a few issues to fix. And you know, just keep in mind, this is beta, so they're working out the kinks. But to be eligible, you must have the US or worldwide distribution rights to your book. Your book must be an ebook that is reflowable. No fixed format layouts. It should have a table of contents using Kindle Create or ncx. No comic books, cookbooks, photo heavy layouts. So no lasagna recipe qualifies for this. And also it cannot. And this is kind of, you know, obvious, I think, but it cannot have an existing Audible audiobook, not even one from a previous edition. Also, your book must be English or Spanish and not larger than 240,000 words. And it needs a proper cover and a primary author listed. So you need to be legit here. And your title must be under 200 characters. If your book title reads like a legal document, well, it's time for a trim. Forget about not having an audiobook. You have other issues to tend to. Now for the fun part. Choosing your narrator. Now, I spent way too much time on this and it was tricky to record this and record the voices because audible has this set up kind of slick so you can't hear all the voice. You'll have to go play with them yourself. But I played with a bunch and they have British accents, Australian accents, they have males, females. I went through quite a lot. Oh, by the way, some of these voices are shockingly good. Others, well, you know, probably could use a cup of coffee. But it was wild how different the vibe of each voice actually makes the words in a book sound. In the end, I went with American English 6 because it sounds like me without trying to mimic me. But I just thought my audience wouldn't be shocked because if I went with a baritone or a bubbly bot, that would be a little weird. It just felt right for the tone of my book. Now, I do recommend you listen carefully to how certain unique names or industry jargon or acronyms are pronounced. And if you have a lot of them, this is probably not a good fit for your book because you can fix it using the pronunciation editor and you can spell things out phonetically or use SSML tags if you're fancy like that. But it's a lot of extra work. Now, if you're thinking, woo, this is going to take forever to tweak chapter by chapter. Let me tell you. I thought that you could have cheat codes like just speed this up and slow this down and play with the pacing. Do not do that. I would say abort that thought. The speed editing made it sound terrible. Now, maybe if it had a 5% slower and a 5% faster option, but. But it only had 25% or 50% and that is a hard no, it was awful. I do not recommend it. So I think if you're really particular, well, you're not going to like this. But if you're really particular, you can listen to it, add a few pauses and focus on fixing pronunciation. But ultimately this is for somebody who is going for good. Not great. As far as the best quality audiobook version goes, once your voice is locked in, it's time to review the narration and you do this chapter by chapter, you'll see the book broken up into sections. I recommend hitting play on the opening, middle and end and ultimately listening to the whole thing, but you're really looking for anything that might have gone weird in the creation of it. Like it sounds like it's suddenly possessed by a GPS system, or it's completely butchering something. You can go in and fix it once you're happy with it, click Publish and boom, your audiobook is on its way to Audible, Amazon and Alexa. Amazon says it'll be live within 72 hours, which is a lot faster than some of you. Return my emails, you know who you are. But it actually was up really fast. In fact, it was up two hours later. So it's here. Do you want to hear a sample? You can click underneath the audiobook. It now shows the Listen to the digitally voice sample. So here we go.

Risks and Rewards of Profitable Real Estate Investing by Julie Broad Preface I may be alone in admitting it, but I know I am not alone in feeling it. There are days when I think a job at Starbucks would be the way to go. The Smell of Freshly grabbed all right.

So it's live and you can hear the voice sample. You can go to More than cash flow on Amazon.com and check it out yourself. But there's a little sample right there. It sounds a little robotic, but honestly, for the price point, I think it's pretty good. Now, speaking of price point, you will set your list price between 3.99 and 14.99 and you'll earn 40% royalties on every sale, which is an a la carte purchase or part of a subscription ebook add on. Now let's pause here and talk about the royalties just a tiny bit more. So Amazon is paying 40% on all sales of audiobooks produced through this virtual voice beta program, which, let's be real, it's not a great deal for authors, but it never is with audible, is it? 40% royalty applies across the board whether the audiobook is sold a la carte or it's included in the subscription listening via Audible or Amazon Music. Now, the sale price is flexible as always. You set a sale price between 3.99and $14.99, but Amazon may adjust the sale price and with an add on it is set at $1.99. So that's what you're going to get. And that is really how this product seems to be promoted by Amazon as a way to read your ebook or have a listener read your ebook on the go. If it's included in an Audible membership, you know, through their credit or their monthly audiobook selection. Your royalty is based on a mysterious little math trick called the Audible Listener Allocation factor. Amazon pools all the member revenue and then splits it up amongst the books based on the list price and the number of selections you still get paid monthly. It's just a little more complicated and hidden under the hood. Now for folks in KDP select, your AudioBook earnings from Audible plus are rolled into the KDP Select Global Fund calculated based on pages listed. Listen, I am not in KDP select because I don't want to be exclusive with Amazon. Now it's important to know all audiobooks royalties are paid monthly, but as always there's a delay so you'll be paid 60 days after the end of the sale month. So yeah, 40% top line number, but it varies a bit based on your audiobook. How much of your audiobook is sold or listened to depending on which program is the purchase of the audiobook is used for the purchase of the audiobook. So is Amazon's digital voice program a game changer? Well, I think if you're looking for a quick, low cost way to expand your book's reach, it's a solid tool, especially for nonfiction authors with clean reader focused manuscripts. I don't know about fiction, but I'm not a fiction author or expert in any way. Just remember you're trading a human voice for speed savings. But for some authors that's a win and a big one worth taking. Personally, I would not be using this tool for my main books because I want my voice in your head haunting you while you're writing that book and not working on your hook or you're loading into Amazon without a marketing plan. Yes my friend, I want you to succeed and I want it to be my voice you hear when you're about to skip an important step. But for More than Cash flow, which was my book from 15 years ago that set me onto this beautiful world of self publishing books. Well, I am happy to be the experiment for you so you can choose the right path for your book. Now I already know some of you are going to comment AI is evil. Keep it out. Go ahead, fill your boots, share your thoughts below. But know that I am all about each author making the best choice for their business and their goals and that is not the same for everyone. I also have made friends with the robots so when they take over they give me the best jobs and hopefully still allow me to have coffee and chocolate. Let me know in the comments if you're trying it. And if you want help narrating and producing your own audiobook with your human voice, we do that too. So you can check out our services@book launchers.com until next time, keep on writing and publishing your hashtag noboringbooks.